The present invention relates generally to the field of systems for monitoring and protection of mechanical systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a technique for providing highly adaptable and user configurable alarms in monitoring and protection equipment.
In the field of industrial equipment monitoring and protection, a wide range of components and systems are known and presently in use. Depending upon the nature of the underlying mechanical system, the monitoring and protection components may generate various signals representative of dynamic conditions. The signal-generating components are typically sensors and transducers positioned on or otherwise closely associated with points of interest of the machine systems. The signals are applied to monitoring circuits, typically somewhat remote from the points of interest, and are used to analyze the performance of the machine system. Machine systems thus instrumented may include rotary machines, assembly lines, production equipment, material handling equipment, power generation equipment, as well as many other types of machines of varying complexity.
A variety of unwanted conditions may develop in machine systems that can occur rapidly, or develop over time or in certain situations, such as loading or due to wear or system degradation. Where unwanted conditions appear, for example, alarms or alerts may be warranted, or it may even be desirable to shut down or start up portions of the machine system to prevent damage or to provide for servicing. The flexibility of the monitoring and protection system to a range of conditions and parameter levels may be an important and desirable characteristic. For example, the response of the monitoring and protection components to different dynamic conditions may differ greatly depending upon the machine system itself, its typical operating characteristics, the nature of the system, and the relative importance of the conditions that may develop. Such responses may range from taking no action, to reporting, to logging, to providing alerts, and to energizing or de-energizing parts or all of the machine system.
By way of example, one type of condition that may be monitored in rotary and other dynamic machine systems is vibration. Information indicative of vibration may be collected by accelerometers on or adjacent to points of interest of a machine, and conveyed to monitoring or control equipment. The information from the accelerometers is not typically useful in its raw form, and must be processed, analyzed, and considered in conjunction with other factors, such as operating speeds, to determine the appropriate response to existing or developing conditions.
Responses to monitored signals and processed data, such as vibrational data, may differ due to a number of factors. Again, these may include the normal operating characteristics of the machine system. Also, however, particular bands or ranges of speeds or frequencies may be of particular interest due to the relatively greater impact of system response at such frequencies. Moreover, during certain operating periods, such as during startup or a change in speed or loading, the various ranges may be of greater or lesser interest in deciding upon an appropriate response.
Existing monitoring and protection systems, such as those used to monitor vibrational data do not provide a desired degree of versatility in configuration to accommodate such factors. In particular, such systems do not provide sufficient capabilities for adapting alarms, alerts, and levels for action or response to changing operating conditions. There is a need for considerably expanded and greatly more adaptable monitoring equipment in which multiple alarms, alerts and response levels can be set or selected. There is a particular need for a modular system in which such configuration may be set for individual monitoring modules that may be positioned within proximity to points of interest in a monitored machine system.
The present invention provides a monitoring and protection technique designed to respond to such needs. The technique may be applied in a wide range of settings, but is particularly useful in instrumentation of industrial machine systems, such as rotating equipment. While the technique is based upon a configurable monitoring module design, it gains further utility when implemented in complex machine systems in which monitoring modules are placed at or near particular locations of interest. The distributed nature of the resulting system topology, and the configurability of the monitoring modules greatly enhances the adaptability of the system to various machine systems, dynamic conditions, and operating characteristics.
The technique permits multiple alarm, alert, or response parameters to be set by a user. The configuration parameters may be similar or quite different in nature, such as to establish acceptable limits or ranges of the parameters monitored by individual modules. The configuration parameters being set by a user enables the monitoring approach to be adapted to specific applications, either at initial installation of equipment, or subsequently as the equipment is serviced or optimized.
In a present implementation, the user configurable alarms are set in certain dedicated monitoring modules, such as vibration monitors. The alarms may be set for specific speed or frequency bands, with multiple alarms being possible for each frequency band over a vibration profile. The alarms may combine multiple parameters as well, depending upon the application. The monitoring modules may be further configured to take certain actions based upon a comparison of the alarm levels with detected or calculated parameter values, such as reporting, or energizing or de-energizing a component of the system, such as via an integrated relay circuit.